As the Bacchanalian throng moshed to adland’s gods and goddess of rock at last week’s Battle of the Ad Bands, .99/justONE took the opportunity to shoulder tap—literally—some of those in attendance.
Humans are simple creatures. We love free things. We love tiny things. We love to collect things. So, put them all together, as New World and its retail agency .99 have done for the Little Shop Collectables campaign, and watch the minds get blown.
Audi, Warehouse Stationery, Sony and a Vietnamese hospital get a gold star this week.
Warehouse Stationery has embarked on its biggest brand transformation in 22 years, and it’s all about the new, with a new logo, new colours, new instore environments and a new brand campaign from its new agency .99.
Spouses, they’re scary. Am I right? Tower’s new TVC campaign plays on the age-old fear of breaking bad news to your significant other, showing that having a policy with the insurance company (or add-on services such as TXT updates) makes the task just a little bit less frightening.
.99 has continued its golden run of new business, winning the local L’Oréal business after a competitive pitch.
New World has been celebrating its 50th anniversary recently. And Foodstuffs has taken steps to ensure a few more successful years in the grocery biz by appointing Colenso BBDO as its official brand agency.
Small independent creative agency ProCreation has won the Super Liquor business in a competitive pitch, beating out rumoured contenders including the incumbent .99, Running with Scissors/Tangible Media and Social Fabric.
Mergers and acquisitions have been fairly rare throughout These Difficult Times, but the Clemenger Group has made a significant addition to its communications coterie and is hoping to create a formidable advertising force by fusing .99 and direct/CRM/1-to-1 agency justONE.
DB Export’s twisted love story, Genesis Energy’s comparative number and a slightly frustrated Dan Carter get a back pat and a bum slap.
It seems we can chalk up yet another win for .99, with the retail specialist thought to have taken the Warehouse Stationery business in a competitive pitch, beating out incumbent M&C Saatchi and rumoured contenders of Y&R and DDB.
Warehouse Stationery has put its creative account up for pitch. And it’s pretty close to a must-win for the incumbent M&C Saatchi.
Genesis Energy seems to have a penchant for agencies with numbers in their titles. Hot on the heels of .99 and justONE being appointed the power company’s advertising agency comes news direct marketing and digital agency Twenty has been awarded the Energy Online account – the challenger brand energy business of Genesis Energy.
New Zealand’s largest national newspaper, The Sunday Star Times, has had a pretty rough time of it recently, with some fairly concerning readership and circulation results. But an editorial rejig is in process to, as Fairfax chief executive Allen Williams says, improve the newspaper and make it more appealing and authoritative, and it’s also launched a new campaign with its new agency .99 that aims to draw attention to the great content it provides.
DraftFCB took a couple of .99’s biggest accounts last year in the form of Vodafone and Air New Zealand, but it looks likes .99 has got some retribution as it’s won the Genesis Energy pitch along with justONE. And there’s also a change in media, with Starcom taking over from the incumbent Spark.
Given Genesis Energy is the biggest spender in the electricity sector, clocking in with a very specific $4,408,317 in the year to July according to Nielsen’s AIS data, the news it was up for pitch whipped up a bit of excitement in agency land. From what we’ve heard, pretty much every non-conflicted man and his dog was in the room at the RFP stage, which could either be seen as an indication Genesis was testing the whole market to find the best partner or it didn’t know what kind of agency it actually wanted. But reliable sources have informed us the shortlist has now been decided on, with .99, Y&R, M&C Saatchi and DraftFCB thought to be getting set to fight it out for creative duties and Spark and Naked thought to be in the running for media.
Tower’s last campaign was based around some of the things it had learned about is customers in its almost 150 year existence as an insurance company (like 52.4 percent of its Roadwise call outs are for flat batteries), and along with its new agency .99, which was appointed as Tower’s full-service agency a few months back, it’s found another truth to base its new campaign on: people will always find something to worry about, no matter how trivial.
The Cure Kids charity song ‘Feel inside (and stuff like that) by The Flight of the Conchords and their Kiwi musical counterparts was quite possibly the best thing ever made. And to draw attention to World Lymphoma Day on Saturday, .99 and the Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand have created something pretty good too, with a two minute video fronted by TV3 newsreader Hilary Barry and comedian Jeremy Corbett that asks a range of New Zealand celebrities to name a word they hate.
A plethora of televisual commercial messages that caught our attention this week, with New World, TAB, New Zealand Herald, Alzheimers New Zealand, Freeview and Max all receiving a metaphorical $20 meatpack.
Colenso BBDO and .99’s impressive ‘Every Day a New World’ brand campaign received a bit of international attention when it was released and was even used in an opinion piece in Mumbrella to prove that New Zealand’s advertising was better than Australia’s. And now, to celebrate its love of sport—from its sponsorship of the Silver Ferns to its support of a range of local sports teams around the country—and show that it’s the place to go to feed the troops, it’s released another good one called ‘Game Day’. And it may be the only supermarket ad ever made that references the nervous sporting poo.
As the bean counters might say, if advertising doesn’t improve the bottom line, it’s really just art. And expensive art at that. And the agencies that improved their clients’ businesses the most this year have been announced, with perennial Effie performers Colenso BBDO and DraftFCB on top with 22 and 16 finalists respectively, followed by the bolter Barnes, Catmur & Friends on ten and DDB on nine.
Back in the day, those with the ability to control fire were likely to be run out of town—or put in the old ‘let’s see if they’ll drown’ chair—for “being conversant in the dark arts”. But, as a new campaign for Rinnai by .99 shows, these days it’s something to put in your brochure.
.99’s win of the Tower business was a much-needed fillip for the embattled agency. And the good news has continued after it was handed the reins for a range of through-the-line communications for Fairfax Media’s Sunday Star Times newspaper after winning a pitch against Y&R Auckland and Christchurch agency Simpatico.
After a pretty intense rough patch, where three of its big clients—Vodafone, Air New Zealand and Westpac—went west in quick succession, .99 has been on the hunt for a few wins and it’s received some welcome good news after being appointed as the full service agency for Tower following a recent head to head pitch against M&C Saatchi.
Colenso BBDO and .99’s ‘Every Day a New World’ brand campaign for New World was very well received, and even inspired a piece in Mumbrella asking why New Zealand’s advertising was so much better than Australia’s. And .99 has kept up the good work, with its rich media homepage takeover winning the IABNZ Creative Award for June.
This year’s Red Socks Day falls nearly 11 years since Kiwi legend Sir Peter Blake was killed by pirates on the Amazon. Today, the Sir Peter Blake Trust continues to honour not only the man himself, but also his leadership, love for the environment, and his dedication to New Zealand youth. And to help raise awareness for this year’s Red Socks Day, Westpac, which is the foundation sponsor for the trust and has supported it since it formed in 2004, and .99 worked with street artist Sparrow ‘Component’ Philips (co-founder of the Cut Collective) to create a one of a kind stencil-art styled image of Sir Peter’s face made from almost 3,000 red, white and black socks.
Most of the One Show Awards were handed out last month, with Colenso BBDO taking a gold and Publicis Mojo taking a silver. And the winners of the One Show Entertainment Awards, which honour the world’s best entertainment concepts, television ideas, branding and mobile or online content, were announced yesterday in Los Angeles, with Special Group’s Smirnoff Night Project taking a silver pencil in the television/reality/unscripted category.
The Westpac rescue helicopters have saved thousands of lives in New Zealand. But saving those lives doesn’t come cheap (in fact, it costs around $4 million a year to fund a three-crew 24/7 immediate-response team). And despite the ongoing support of principal sponsor Westpac and other partners, the assistance of the public is also crucial to help keep them flying, so this year’s fundraising campaign by .99 aims to remind Kiwis that every donation is valuable regardless of its size, just like the equipment inside each helicopter.
Who’s it for: New World by Colenso BBDO/.99 and Finch
Why we like it: A long overdue brand refresh for New World, which has been battered by the big-spending Countdown in recent years. All three ads from the new campaign are bang on in terms of …
